Apple has the much-anticipated iCloud waiting in the pipe. (Source: Apple)

The company is still struggling to find an appropriate successor to Mr. Jobs, though, in the face of the CEO's health problems. Reportedly, the company's directors are holding secret meetings behind the CEO's back. (Source: AP Photo)

Apple, Inc. (AAPL) currently finds itself a contentious figure in the tech industry, trying to bury the industry's smart phone leader Google Inc. (GOOG) in a sea of lawsuits [1][2][3][4][5]. Apple's critics will be swift to point to the fact that it's being outsold over two-to-one globally by Google. But such criticism are essentially moot in the face of the cold, hard fact that Apple is still crushingly profitable.

That growth rode on the shoulders of soaring device sales. The analysts predicted 16.5 million iPhones, 4.2 million Macs, and 7.8 million iPads sold and Apple delivered 20.34m iPhones, 3.95m Macs, and 9.25m iPads. The iPhone and iPad sales represent growth of 42 and 83 percent, respectively.

Apple also drew $7.31B USD in net profit, up an extraordinary 125 percent from last year. The sum is piled on Apple's growing mound of surplus cash.

CEO Steven P. Jobs cheered, "We’re thrilled to deliver our best quarter ever, with revenue up 82 percent and profits up 125 percent. Right now, we’re very focused and excited about bringing iOS 5 and iCloud to our users this fall."

The company continues to write its own playbook, namely showing that you don't have to be on top of every market you're in to be one of the world's most profitable tech firms. While Apple's handsets sales were short of its rivals' it boasted a far greater profit margin.

Amid all the excitement about the earnings, it's important to take a step back and examine both the company's potential upsides and downsides in the near term.

Looking at the tablet market, Apple appears to still be firing on all cylinders. The company is still the market leader, with customers only slowly warming to the idea of Android tablets. Apple's iPad 2 is roughly on par with the Android competition in price and, for the most part, specs (though its allotment of DRAM is still a bit low). Apple looks to be growing fast enough to maintain a dominant position in this market for some time.

In the smart phone market, Apple's prospects are more mixed.

On the upside, its recent victory over HTC Corp. (SEO:066570) illustrates U.S. courts may be willing to allow it to remove its Android competitors from the market. Further, it reportedly has two new handsets coming within the next year, with iPhone generation six development reportedly proceeding at an accelerated pace. Apple also is rumored to be looking forward with these next generation handsets to expanding to Deutsche Telekom AG's (DTE) T-Mobile USA and Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) -- gaining access to the final third of the friendly U.S. market. All of these factors add up to increased sales.

On the other hand, Apple's growth is still far slower than Android's globally. This is dangerous because Apple runs the risk of losing the war for developers, which in turn could slow Apple's growth while catalyzing Android's.

In the PC market, the 14 percent year-to-year growth was flatter than analysts predicted. And Apple continues to struggle in international sales, failing to crack the top six in PCs globally. Still, in the lucrative U.S. market Apple is the biggest success story, posting more growth than any other firm. And the company continues to move aggressively to bring down its costs, which should compound its growth.

Finally, turning to software, iTunes continues to dominate the market, though antitrust clouds loom. Speaking of clouds, the iCloud is incoming, which will offer customers the opportunity to trade their pirated tracks for high-quality lossless legal ones for a small monthly fee. That service goes a bit beyond what Google and other foes like Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) are offering up, so it would be unsurprising to see a strong reception, particularly among the iPhone userbase.

III. The Big Question -- Steve Jobs

Probably the most serious questions for Apple investors boil down to a single man -- the company's co-founder, Mr. Jobs. Mr. Jobs is ostensibly on medical leave, though he remains CEO, continuing to direct company meetings, product development, media relations, and more.

The leave has stressed relations at Apple's tight-knit board of directors. The board, which has six members in addition to Mr. Jobs, has traditionally been viewed as Mr. Jobs' puppets, with all the members being hand picked by Mr. Jobs himself. However, a handful of directors are reportedly conducting a search for a successor, without the knowledge or the approval of the full board.

The meetings, revealed by sources of The Wall Street Journal, have been held for the past twelve years and ostensibly began due to Mr. Jobs' age. At the time Mr. Jobs was 44.

However, they took on a more serious tone in 2004 when Mr. Jobs was diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer. While he was able to beat back the cancer, he again fell ill in 2009 when complications essentially destroyed his liver, forcing him to get a transplant. It is unclear what his latest medical issues entail, but it's troubling for the company.

Mr. Jobs is widely viewed as the glue that holds Apple together, ever-exacting in his demand for thinner, lighter, more attractive gadgets. At Apple Mr. Jobs has traditionally been judge, jury, and executioner -- no major decision was made without his approval. And from a pure financial perspective he's been brilliant, despite his controversial reputation among tech observers.

Reportedly, after the latest medical leave the directors approached the head of a major tech company, and several high-level executive recruiting agencies. The message seems clear -- Apple doesn't have a clear cut successor on the inside, so it's looking for an outside candidate when Mr. Jobs finally has to depart from his role.

Given Mr. Jobs relatively young age and uncertain health, no one knows exactly how soon that event may occur. But some at Apple clearly aren't will to be caught unprepared.

The meetings reportedly are conducted once yearly under the shroud of utmost secrecy. Recalls a source, "[Having a success plan is] best practice. Everybody in the room is sworn to secrecy as to what it [the succession] plan is."

The source said that Mr. Jobs eventual departure "is going to be traumatic" and comments that the successor will not be revealed until that happens, stating, "[the successor will be revealed only] when the CEO decides to retire or the board decides the CEO should not be the CEO anymore."

All of the biggest companies in tech have tried bringing some cool products to market and emulate Apple's success. There's a shitload of great devices on that list. All marketplace failures or mild success at best quickly forgotten.

Chin Luo, the poor Chinese boy, he wakes up at night, unable to sleep in the concentration-camp bunker after a 15 hour shift, and all he wants to do is save up seventy-two cents a day to pay for his moms cancer treatments. But he can't leave, they won't let him, even if it is to take a better paying job in a more humane working environment. The only way out is suicide.

Hey Dude, you do know that Foxconn does business aside from Apple right?

Like somehow all these motherboards and assembly of other companies products are all made in USA ... right ....

Get your head out of your ass and realize that everyone is doing the same thing. It's not a good thing, but to point all the fingers towards Apple is absurd. If you don't want to contribute to the problem, don't buy anything made or assembled in China.

Chin Luo, the poor Chinese boy, he wakes up at night, unable to sleep in the concentration-camp bunker after a 15 hour shift, and all he wants to do is save up seventy-two cents a day to pay for his moms cancer treatments. But he can't leave, they won't let him, even if it is to take a better paying job in a more humane working environment. The only way out is suicide.

Apple dividends = blood money.

Let's leave aside that Apple doesn't actually pay dividends bloody or otherwise and that virtually any electronic device or indeed any consumer item you buy in America is being made under identical conditions somewhere in China. Let's instead move into a strange but interesting new territory - the territory of facts.

Warning: Fact Alert. If facts offend look away now.

Wikipedia gives the average annual rate of suicide per 100,000 people in China per year as 6.6. The rate is different for men and women and this is the adjusted average for both genders. Like all 'averages' the figure is derived form a larger set of differing numbers over time, some periods will see more suicides and some periods fewer. Over time suicides avergae to 6.6 per 100,000 people per year.

Foxconn is listed as having approximately 1 million employees (again see Wikipedia)

This means that one would expect 66 Foxconn employees to commit suicide every year if the rate at Foxconn was just the same as the average rate for China as a whole.

The Guardian newspaper reports that In Shenzhen and Chengdu a joint Foxconn workforce of 500,000 works on Apple products.

This would mean that if the suicide rate amongst Foxconn emplyees working on Apple products was the same as the the average rate for China then one would expect 33 suicide per year.

The 'spate' of Foxconn employee suicides that prompted such lurid headlines a while back consisted of 7 employee suicides in a six month period out of a workforce of 300,000. The normal rate of suicides per 300,000 people in China in any six month period would expected to be 9.9. Thus the suicide rate at Foxconn was below the national average.

The old saying about computers - 'garbage in garbage out' - also applies to the consumption of sensationalist media hype. If you ever see a newspaper headline that confirms or excites your deepest beliefs or prejudices you should be doubly vigilant about checking its factual basis.

Exactly why all of those teenage girls are buying the iPhone in droves. I've known people that have owned the black iPhone 4, only to get rid of it and buy the white one when it was released! I mean, what did that achieve? Do people really value a colour that much? Sheer vanity at its utmost.

As for the iPad - None of my friends or relatives own one. However I've noticed quite a lot of business owners/directors purchase one with some of their company's spare cash. Whilst they're swiping away playing Angry Birds and reading their emails (whilst sat at a PC with email functionality), their company's IT is struggling to cope with 8-year-old PCs that are ready to die, having to be repaired in some form or other on a daily basis. Computers that are barely capable of viewing a web page, hardly providing a productive tool for the worker when they're having to call their IT company multiple times a week with the same issues. Now wouldn't that money have been better spent improving the efficiency of their IT, with computers that are not almost 10 years old?

It just seems to be where Apple's products appear, all logic is thrown out the window.

"We are going to continue to work with them to make sure they understand the reality of the Internet. A lot of these people don't have Ph.Ds, and they don't have a degree in computer science." -- RIM co-CEO Michael Lazaridis